Was Gonzales v. Carhart a Catholic decision?
Geoffrey Stone and others call it that. Rick Garnett and others regard this as a bigoted response, one that avoids having to engage in the arguments Kennedy and his colleagues make. Theres of course a lot more to be said about the decision. Claremonts Michael Uhlmann offers a good beginning. Richard John Neuhaus is hopeful for the catholicity of the Catholics on the Court: I expect it is in the minds of many, but so far there has been only marginal public comment on the fact that all five in the Carhart majority are Catholics. What can one say? Know-Nothings of the world unite? It is not a peculiarly Catholic perception, but it is an emphatically Catholic perception, that legitimate law cannot be divorced from morality. And in this constitutional order of representative democracy, the relationship between moral judgment and law is best expressed by the legislature. Justice Kennedys opinion for the majority certainly relies on the commonsensical (and not particularly Catholic) morality
